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Anti-gay violence and gay “propaganda” laws in Russia have drawn widespread public attention in the media recently. However, these attacks and others like them have had a longstanding history.

In the following PinkNews catalogue of anti-gay stories in Russia, we take yet another look at some of the most shocking events to date, from the newspaper editor fined for printing “being gay is normal” this year, to the earliest incidents covered by this site, such as when the gay rights activist Peter Tatchell was punched in the face at a 2007 pride parade.

The stories come in no particular order however, neither chronological nor hierarchical. This is to reflect that the Russian narrative of anti-gay oppression and violence has followed no straightforward passage either, and cannot be thought of in terms of recent history alone.

Three men in Russia were sentenced this month for the brutal murder of a man they stabbed and set on fire because they suspected he was gay.

According to AFP, the men, who all came from the same village in the eastern Russian region of Kamchatka, committed the murder because they were “convinced of the non-traditional sexual orientation of their fellow villager,” regional prosecutors said in a statement.

The men “lured the man in his car to a deserted part of the forest. There, the eldest man stabbed the victim multiple times in the chest, face and neck, and two others kicked him.”

Lastly, prosecutors said the perpetrators placed the 29-year-old victim in his car and the set the vehicle alight with petrol.

Although the main motive for the crime was homophobia, the three men were prosecuted for murder, not hate crime.

A Russian newspaper editor was fined 50,000 roubles (£860) last month under the ‘gay propaganda’ law for printing that “being gay is normal”.

Alexander Suturin, the editor-in-chief of newspaper Molodoi Dalnevostochnik, was found guilty of breaking the law, as the article propagated “homosexual relations”.

In being found guilty, his newspaper became the first media outlet to have been found in breach of the law.

Last September the newspaper printed an interview with Alexander Yermoshkin, a teacher fired for being gay, in which he talked about his dismissal, his attack by a neo-Nazi group, and involvement in LGBT demonstrations.

The prosecution said the piece had broken “traditional family values” to promote “genderless and fruitless so-called tolerance”

“He was raped with beer bottles and had his skull smashed with a stone,” said Natalia Kunitskaya, a spokeswoman for the Volgograd region branch of the Investigative Committee.

She went on to admit that the attack was believed to have been a hate crime, which was noted as a rare admission from Russian law enforcement agencies on the issue of homophobia in the country.

A later statement from the Moscow-based Investigative Committee confirmed that two men aged 22 and 27 had been detained in connection with the attack. One of the suspects has a criminal history, the statement said.

It went on to say that they thought the victim had been drinking with two men, apparently while celebrating Victory Day, a national holiday in Russia held on 9 May.

Regional Investigator Andrei Gapchenko, said the men started beating the victim when he told them he was gay.

Recently, Channel 4′s harrowing documentary, Hunted, followed the Russian gangs that hunt gay men for sport.

Investigative journalist Liz MacKean got inside the St Petersburg branch of Occupy Paedophilia, an anti-gay organisation with at least 37 chapters across Russia. The group tracks down and abducts gay men, torturing and humiliating them, before posting the footage on the internet.

In the film, showing off for the camera, the group find a man looking for a hookup, and lure him back to the flat. He is caught and held down, as the group set about extracting a confession from him. “We will ruin his life, as usual”, one quips.

Cameraman and director Ben Steele carried on filming despite the man’s discomfort, and recalled the horror of being unable to help him. He said on Monday: “It was deeply uncomfortable not knowing what was going to happen. The only way I could cope with being in that situation was to document it.”

The group humiliate the man, coercing him into an ‘interview’ about his sexuality, and forcing him to dance. Compared to some of the other victims of the vigilante groups, he is lucky; being beaten and drenched in urine is the standard humiliation, but some of the assaults have been much, much worse.

In 2011, Moscow police arrested and detained a number of prominent gay rights activists including the openly gay US soldier Dan Choi as homophobic violence from Russian neo nazis broke out during the banned Moscow Pride march near the Kremlin.

Peter Tatchell reported: “We witnessed a high level of fraternisation and collusion between neo-Nazis and the Moscow police. I saw neo-Nazis leave and re-enter police buses parked on Tverskaya Street by City Hall.

“Our suspicion is that many of the neo-Nazis were actually plainclothes police officers, who did to us what their uniformed colleagues dared not do in front of the world’s media.

“Either that, or the police were actively facilitating the right-wing extremists with transport to the protest”.

Referencing a doctor, who criticised the decision of several European countries to legalise marriage rights for same-sex couples, Mr Mikhailov praised the doctor and reportedly said: “We have to deal with such things”. He added that his province should adopt a law in which the marines have the right to flog the “asses” of gay people.

“In Russia for many centuries the ass was used for educational purposes and not for love entertainment. So we should use it according to its intended purpose,” the MP said.

Vitaly Cherkasov, head of the Zabaikalsky Human Rights Centre, said he believed that Mr Mikhailov’s remarks could help incite hatred toward the gay community among locals. The regional prosecutor’s office said it would respond to the group’s request to evaluate the legality of the comment.

He was placed in the facility against his will after his paternal grandmother had tricked him into seeing a witch who attempted to exorcise the ‘spirit of homosexuality’ from him. When this route failed, his father turned to doctors and medication for help.

“I’d rather have you disabled or a vegetable than gay,” the father told the son according to local Ekho Moskvy radio.

The BBC Russian Service reported that Mr Kharchenko did manage to place a banner reading “I love you” addressed to his boyfriend out of his window at the facility.

Videos seen by PinkNews showed bottles, snowballs and other objects being thrown at the pro-gay protesters as well as fascists performing Nazi salutes outside an Adidas store. The videos later showed police officers separating the protesters.

At least one pro-gay protester needed medical assistance according to sources.

As part of a documentary on gay rights Stephen Fry travelled to Russia in March to interview the author of St Petersburg’s notorious anti-gay propaganda bill, who told him gay teenagers do not face bullying for their sexuality.

Galina Kovtun, one of a few dozen Pride marchers present, said the detention of attendees was “disgusting and unjust … There is such a thing as freedom of speech, after all.”

Alexander Asman told Al Jazeera he was an observer who sympathised with the Pride marchers, adding: “It’s an outrage that they didn’t allow a gay parade … but I’m glad there weren’t fights as in Georgia.” Al Jazeera reported that he was arrested shortly after.

Nationalists and religious groups threw eggs and shouted slogans such as “Death to homosexuals.”

Mr Tatchell told PinkNews: “I urge people to protest to the Russian Ambassador and to ask their local MP to send a letter of protest to the Russian embassy.”

He added: “We also need a strong statement of condemnation from the Foreign Office, who have so far been silent. I am a British citizen violently attacked when mounting a lawful protests whilst the Russian police allowed violence to be perpetrated against me.”

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: “We condemn violence in any form, but in this particular case we need to ascertain the full facts before making any further comment.”

Mr Tatchell told PinkNews: “There is no rule of law in Moscow. The right to protest does not exist. This is not a democracy.

“Today’s protest was about much more than gay rights. We were defending the right to freedom of expression and peaceful protest for all Russians, gay and straight.

“The ban on Moscow Gay Pride is one aspect of a much wider attack on civil society and human rights. It is evidence of a failed transition from communism to democracy and of a rising trend towards autocracy and authoritarianism”.

Last year, according to an opinion survey researching national identity in Russia, it was revealed that just over half the Russian population would not “under any circumstances” want to see a gay person as a neighbour or as a work colleague.

The state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VCIOM) attempted to examine which ideas and values united Russians, and which kept them apart.

Representing 45 regions across the country, 1,600 Russians took part in the poll.

One of the major divisions highlighted in the survey were attitudes towards gay people, in which just over half the population answered they would not want to live nearby or work with a gay person “under any circumstances.”

Last year, an anti-gay Russian video claimed that 50 per cent of pedophiles are gay and that gay couples only adopt children because they want to rape them.

The video, translated into English bases its ‘facts’ on a controversial and much criticised study by anti-gay American researcher Mark Regnerus.

A version of the video with English subtitles was uploaded to YouTube by US blogger John Aravosis, who wrote: “This video has been posted by me, a civil rights advocate, to expose the level of hatred that gay and trans people face in Russia. One thing we have learned, repeatedly, in the overall LGBT civil rights effort, but also specifically in our work against Russia’s anti-gay crackdown, is that the best way to neutralize anit-gay hate is by ‘exposing’ their hate.”

In February, a middle school girl in the Bryansk region of Russia became the first ever minor to be accused of breaking the country’s notorious anti-gay “propaganda” law.

According to a report by Znak.com, a ninth grade girl, aged 14-15, last November “openly declared herself to be a person of nontraditional sexual orientation,” the local minors’ commission said.

During this time, the commission said the girl “disseminated information aimed at forming a distorted picture among juveniles of the social equality of traditional and nontraditional sexual relations.”

However, authorities decided not to place criminal charges against her as she had not sexually assaulted anyone. Instead, she was put under the supervision of the local juvenile commission.

In February, prosecutors investigated whether a children’s library book about tolerance and cultural diversity contained alleged gay “propaganda,” it has been reported.

‘Families. Ours and Theirs’ by Vera Timenchik was a book donated to the Ulyanovsk Regional Scientific Library under the ‘Other, Others, Otherwise’ charity project in Russia.

However, according to RIANovosti, a spokesperson for the local prosecutor’s office in the Volga area of Ulyanovsk had said: “There is a problem with the contents of this book, because the promotion of such [homosexual] relations is prohibited by the Russian law.”

Ms Timenchik’s book is dedicated to family-related traditions and cultures from countries around the globe, and was alleged to contain information about same-sex marriages.

Following the investigation, a spokesman for the library said the book had already been removed from open bookshelves.

A man in Moscow was arrested and hospitalised in November after he stripped naked and stapled his testicles to a cobblestone pavement, in protest of what he called Russia’s recent descent into a “police state” which follows the passage of anti-gay laws.

The Huffington Post reported Pyotr Pavlensky, a performance artist, carried out the act near Lenin’s mausoleum in the centre of Moscow’s Red Square.

According to Agence France-Presse, the 29-year-old, arrested shortly after the incident, had carried out similar acts in the past, including sewing his lips together against the jailing of two members of Pussy Riot, and wrapping his body in barbed wire outside a government building.

Between 20 and 40 activists were arrested at Slavic Pride in Moscow by anti-riot police in the 2009 Moscow parade, which was held on the same day as the Eurovision song contest final also hosted in the country.

Last month, a woman was charged under Russia’s anti-gay laws for setting up a pro-LGBT page on social networking site Vkontakte.

According to ria.ru, Lena Klimova set up the page ‘Children-404: We Exist’, which publishes posts by gay teenagers talking about their struggle against homophobia and oppression in the country.

Police claimed the group violated the anti-gay law as they “promote unconventional sexual relations among minors, resulting in information aimed at developing juveniles to explore unconventional sexualities”.

Ms Klimova, 25, could face a fine of up to 100,000 roubles (£1,720) under the law, which for her is several months’ salary in the country.

She told Rosbalt.ru: ”On the one hand, I was surprised. On the other hand, I wasn’t, since people are fined under this law for lesser faults. But this is an extreme level of madness. We publish letters from underage gay men and lesbians and this is considered propaganda among minors.”

They added that Syktyvkar’s Mayor Ivan Pozdeyev had requested that city lawmakers prepare a draft law banning any similar events from taking place in the future.

Organisers of the pride march say they intend to go ahead with the event despite having received death threats from right-wing and religious anti-gay groups. Although not allowed to take place in city centre, the march would be held in a park in the outskirts away from the public.

On the same day as the cancellation, the gay pride organiser and chair of the local LGBT group, Artem Kalinin, was physically attacked by the leader of a neo-Nazi group in Syktyvkar.

In front of journalists – who caught the attack on camera – Alex Kolegov beat Mr Kalinin. This worsened when gay activist Kalinin called Kolegov a ‘Nazi.’

However, Mr Kalinin is not deterred by the attack.

“This incident will not change my decision” said Mr Kalinin. “We are going to hold pride in spite of everything.”

He and several witnesses reported the attack and death threats, but the police made no arrest.

Nikolai Alekseev, co-founder of Moscow Pride and GayRussia, has condemned the attack: “This is another proof of full disregard of Russian authorities of the European Court verdict in the case of Moscow Prides by Russian authorities.”

Not long after in July, another bill banning same-sex couples from adopting was also signed into law by the President.

Commenting on the passage of anti-gay laws in Russia, Mr Putin said it was all about “protecting children”.

On the anti-propaganda law, he said: “It’s not about imposing some sort of sanctions on homosexuality…It’s about protecting children from such information,” Mr Putin said.

“Certain countries…think that there is no need to protect [children] from this…But we are going to provide such protection the way that State Duma lawmakers have decided. We ask you not to interfere in our governance,” he added.

An issued statement on the same-sex adoption law said: “This measure is aimed at guaranteeing that children are brought up by their adoptive families in a balanced and complete environment and that their mental wellbeing is not affected by any unwelcome influences, such as the imposition of unconventional sexual behaviour, and also that children are protected from developing complexes and mental distress which psychological research has shown children often experience when brought up by same-gender parents.”

Critics believe that the passage of these anti-gay laws is to provoke many more instances of anti-gay violence to come.

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